Girl of Kosovo by Mead, Alice

Recommended for Grade 7

(Page last edited 10/09/2017)

• Title: Girl of Kosovo
• Author: Mead, Alice
• ISBN: 0374326207
• ISBN 13:

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Description:

A child's perspective on war.

In 1998 the Serb military intensifies its efforts to expel Albanians from Kosovo. Ethnic cleansing forces many families to seek safety in the surrounding hills and mountains. The Kosovo Liberation Army fights back guerrilla style, struggling for an independent Kosovo. Some Albanian villagers support the freedom fighters. Others fear that armed resistance, which they have successfully avoided through long years of Serb repression, will only increase the death toll. And always there is terrible tension between Serbian and Albanian neighbors who once were friends. Eleven-year-old Zana Dugolli, an Albanian Kosovar, isn't sure what to think. She does know not to speak her language to Serbs. And every day she worries about her mother and father, her brothers, the farm, the apple orchard. Already she has lost her best friend, a Serb. Then Zana's village is shelled, and her worst nightmare is realized. Her father and two brothers are killed in the attack, and her leg is shattered by shrapnel. Alone in a Serb hospital, she remembers her father's words: "Don't let them fill your heart with hate."

Based on a true story, Alice Mead's stark, affecting novel about a place and conflict she knows well will help young readers understand the war in Kosovo.

Review (From Amazon.Com):

"How was it that foreigners could come take pictures of us when we were dead, but couldn't come to help us stay alive?" Eleven-year-old Zana Dugolli doesn't understand how the rest of the world can send reporters to record the violence that is inflicted daily on Kosovo-born Albanians by the brutal Serbian military, yet do nothing to stop it. In the late 1990s, Zana's rural village is targeted when the Serbian ruling class steps up its efforts to completely wipe out ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Unbelievingly, she watches as a bomb explodes right in front of her, killing her father and two brothers. Zana's own leg is shattered by the blast, and the physical pain added to the grief of losing half her family is almost more than she can bear. Sick with fear, Zana wonders how much longer she, her mother, and her remaining brother can face the demoralizing effects of so much hate. "All I knew was that I was slowly losing my life. I felt betrayed by everyone and everything. I couldn't trust the ground itself. If a bomb fell on it, it could swallow me whole."

Alice Mead, author of the much-lauded Adem's Cross, continues to draw attention to the horrific Serbian-Albanian conflict with Girl of Kosovo. Brutal and moving, this novel is sure to stir the activist that lives in the heart of every teen and propel young readers to a greater understanding of race, war, and politics. (Ages 10 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

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